What comes first - oil and gas depletion or mass heat death?

[EightInchNails]

What do you think is going to happen first - the natural fuel reserves will be depleted, or the world will die in a mass extinction event caused by the exponential rise in the Earth's temperature caused by the greenhouse gas effect?

[BTGBullseye]

Neither. I think we'll leave the planet long before either are a problem to worry about.

[rairii]

Neither. I think we'll leave the planet long before either are a problem to worry about.

We really shouldn't be banking on leaving the planet before anything catastrophic happens

[BTGBullseye]

We really shouldn't wait for disaster to strike before we get our asses in gear, and colonize other planets.

[rairii]

Sure, but that doesn't change the fact that we should be more careful with natural resources and how we use them in the mean time. If it turns out space colonization isn't feasible within the near future why shouldn't trying to prevent disaster be on the list of priorities?

[BTGBullseye]

Except that a large number of very smart people have said that it isn't even difficult to get a large-scale colony set up on Mars, if we were to actually put the funding into doing it.

[rairii]

Except that a large number of very smart people have said that it isn't even difficult to get a large-scale colony set up on Mars, if we were to actually put the funding into doing it.

I think you've been misunderstanding those "very smart people", it's EXTREMELY difficult to get ANY manner of settlement on Mars set up because of the time and cost that goes in to putting shit on Mars alone. Beyond that, it would probably be only comparatively large-scale, I.E. we've never had a permanent research base on another celestial body, the longest we've stayed on one is a little under a full day. The land on Mars isn't arable, the air on Mars isn't breathable, the gravity on Mars isn't nominal, and it would likely take a good few hundred years at best before we can even think of trying to set up an ecologically sustainable permanent settlement on Mars.

 

Give me a citation that shows that these "very smart people" think we can actually settle mars, and their reasoning why, and then we can talk.

 

So again: how about we just try to take steps toward not killing our planet, just in case?

[Kraken]

If we're assuming 'natural fuel reserves' includes nuclear fuel, then it would be far more likely that we're going to die from heat death. And considering that we could go up a few degrees in CELSIUS over the next century, that would be enough to have a large amount of ice on the caps melt. That's kind of an issue considering how much of the population of Earth lives near water, like it's a resource we need. And if we're just talking about Oil, it's probably just far more likely we're all going to go the route of Fallout and nuke each other. Although, considering the reluctance of any Nuclear power to give a country the chance of Nuclear Energy, and inevitably Nuclear weapons, it's unlikely it would stay stable forever. But either way we're likely going to die from something heat related. We *could* colonize the Moon, which would make going to Mars exponentially easier, but as far as 'habitable' goes, Mars is not a very good candidate, and it would take hundreds of years for proper terraforming, not to mention the issue that it doesn't exactly have a magnetic field. And it could take hundreds of years for the Moon colonies to become self-sustaining, not to mention the obvious issue of a lack of atmosphere, incredible temperature ranges, and the fact that asteroids can and will eventually hit something important. Kinda like... Moonbase Alpha.

But anyways, have this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtQkz0aRDe8